• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Sufferer New Here. Scared of what's next, have no control.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Coldplain

New Here
I'm 51 Male, With PTSD from a long life of trauma. I thought I had this locked down a long time ago but in retrospect maybe I was just hiding from it. I recently was diagnosed with "General Anxiety" from my doctor. I am unable to get into a psychiatrist at the moment because they're book out for months. Doctor has me on Zoloft for the anxiety, Propranolol for my shaking neither of which are doing very well.

I was abused from my mother until I was nine, then kicked out and sent to my father whom I had never met "to kill your good for nothing POS." (My mothers words.) I spent a year being being abused both physically and sexually. I reported it to my teachers at school and had him arrested. He made bond and children's services returned me to his home the next day. He spent the next three days making sure I wouldn't talk in court which worked and I didn't say a word. He spent the next month terrorizing me then I was taken to a city I didn't know and abandoned. I was Ten. At eleven years old I got news to call my grandmother. She told me my father had commited suicide after being caught molesting his niece, she was thirteen. I told her he took care of something I would have done later and she hung up on me never to speak to me again. I lived homeless until I was nineteen and finally made it off the streets. After years of being raped and sold around, beaten and abused, I was finally able to get a job and get off the street.

I graduated school by forging my mothers name to everything. I joined the military in '91 and was sent off to Desert Shield, stayed for Desert Storm and ended my service requirement in '97. I came home lost and alone with PTSD. The military teaches you well to be a soldier, crams it in your brain, tears you down and rebuilds you and when your done, they just let you go, no retraining, no rebuilding you to be a citizen again, just a lost patrol in a world who hates you. It took me five years to swallow that down.

Now I'm 51 married with children, thinking I'm on a good road. Been married for twenty years and doing a job I absolutely love. One day at work, I start shakings. Shaking to the point I could barely walk. I couldn't breath, disoriented, slurring my speech, heart crushing my chest from the inside, sweating and sick to my stomach. I thought I was having a stroke. Squad shows up, they think I'm having a stroke. Run me to the hospital, they take blood and xray my chest, finds nothing. Sent me home. Get a schedule with my doctor for the next day telehealth video call. He puts he face in the camera, "You're having panic attacks!" "What the hell is that?" He explains all the symptoms that I'm having and negative on my blood tests and all my levels were perfect, He looks at me and tells me again and says I need help.

Now I have attacks everyday. Sometimes they're so bad I have to leave work, or can't even go into work. Sometimes three or four a day. I have no idea how to do this. I've been a tough SOB all my life. I'm embarrassed to say I have it. I feel like I've somehow failed myself for allowing this to happen. I am appalled at myself. I have no idea how this happened and I've lost control. Then I learn these don't go away. You try to manage them, but inevitably they will continue.

The signs have been there for years. Years of crying over military coming home videos, not wanting to be around groups of people, sitting with my back to the wall watching the front door at restaurants, hating being in crowded places with no exit strategy. I don't know what I'm allowed to say in here, so I'll leave the rest to those who already know. I've spoken about it for years with therapists and I have no emotional equation attached to the words anymore. I went to my fathers grave and yelled at him for a hour when I got home, but no answers were coming. The whole family thought I was lying until he killed himself. Then everyone went quiet and years later I spoke to his sister, who on our first conversation told me she thought I was dead. That my father had killed me. "If I had known you were alive I would have searched for you!" In which I replied, "but you were going to allow him to get away with murdering me?" I never spoke to her again.

So I found this board, I guess trying to find myself again somewhere. I don't know what to ask or how to make the next step.

Thanks for reading.
 
Welcome aboard! Devildog, here. I followed right after you, enlisted in 96. Latin America & Balkans & a few other places. Some of that active duty. Some what they now call PMC, but back then was still illegal as all hell; until I switched over to NGOs & Disaster Response -as I gradually unf*cked my head and my life- the first time things went sideways. Had a great 10 years, then divorce (and a few other things piling on) sent things sideways again.

If you read nothing else on this site? DO READ THIS >>> The ptsd cup explanation

Useful immediately. And ongoing.
 
hello coldplain. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here. i am also a vet, but of the generation which gets credit for having made the mess you and @Friday inherited. viet nam era. the inventors of the catch 22. should i run for cover now?

to the best of my just-a-patient knowledge, ptsd doesn't go away. not ever. there is no cure for the common me. you can repress the symptoms indefinitely, but methinks you have some fresh clues on the consequences of that wisdom. the good news is that with mindful awareness, the symptoms are manageable and an honestly rich and peaceful life is entirely possible.

gentle support while you find what works for you.

for what it's worth
i breathe my way through panic attacks. breathing exercises can be discrete enough that coworkers, et al, rarely catch on that i am doing them. for the initial panic rush, the childbirth breathing works best for me. hee hee hooo hee hee hooo. after the initial rush passes, i then move to deep breathing until i can breathe normally once more.
 
Welcome aboard! Devildog, here. I followed right after you, enlisted in 96. Latin America & Balkans & a few other places. Some of that active duty. Some what they now call PMC, but back then was still illegal as all hell; until I switched over to NGOs & Disaster Response -as I gradually unf*cked my head and my life- the first time things went sideways. Had a great 10 years, then divorce (and a few other things piling on) sent things sideways again.

If you read nothing else on this site? DO READ THIS >>> The ptsd cup explanation

Useful immediately. And ongoing.
Thanks for posting that link. It’s a good article.
 
Welcome @Coldplain
Thanks for posting that link. It’s a good article.
Not as much abuse in my history but rather similar as to when things went sideways in life. It is scary as hell not knowing whats really going on and why but this is a place to learn. There is lots of help here for dealing with the everyday stuff that goes with living with PTSD. PTSD Cup was the fist piece of the puzzle that really helped with everyday life.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top